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by denzil_correa·7y ago·view on hn ↗
An interesting 2016 article about Snapchat's confusing UI - "How Snapchat Built a Business By Confusing Olds" [0] and HN discussion [1].

> Compared with Twitter or Facebook, Snapchat can seem almost aggressively user-unfriendly. If you’re new to the app and looking for posts by your kid, your boyfriend, or DJ Khaled, good luck. It’s hard to find somebody without knowing his or her screen name. This is by design. “We’ve made it very hard for parents to embarrass their children,” Spiegel said at a conference in January. “It’s much more for sharing personal moments than it is about this public display.”

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-how-snapchat-built-a...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11217075

1 comments
Snapchat ‘16’s UI is much different than Snapchat ‘18.

Snapchat ‘16 was “confusing” because it didn’t hand hold you and a lot of features weee behind invisible swipes. The features were there, it was just hard to realize that they existed.

Snapchat ‘18 isn’t confusing. It’s bad because they de-emphasized everything about why people used the app and instead heavily pushed their own content. It’s practically a different app with a different purpose - it’s a tabloid rag rather than a social network.

Snapchat felt more personal than FB/IG, and I guess Spiegal saw all the celebs using the app and killed the goose trying to monetize that.